


Interlude: Home

by annalore



Series: Roads Untraveled [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-02
Updated: 2004-12-02
Packaged: 2019-07-15 00:48:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16052012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annalore/pseuds/annalore
Summary: It feels too much like home.





	Interlude: Home

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place after their graduation from Hogwarts and before Sirius goes to Azkaban.

Remus’s apartment is not the best money can get. It is simply the best he can afford on his meager salary. Sirius, with his inheritances, has never had to work, and he always feels awkward about the disparity. But Remus invites him in unashamedly, to worn rugs and sagging sofas, pillows fraying at the edges. They have more warmth than anything Sirius has ever bought.

The sheets on Remus’s bed are simple white cotton, the spread a patchwork quilt. A family heirloom, given to Remus by his mother on graduation. Sirius had long since been disowned. There’s always a book on the nightstand, a set of robes draped haphazardly over the armchair in the corner. It feels like home.

Perhaps that’s why Sirius can never stop himself. It feels too much like home to be drinking tea in Remus’s parlor, to be kissing him in the bedroom, the drapes shut and the fire stoked. It feels too much like home when they’re beneath that quilt, Remus’s body warm and welcoming beneath him. It feels too little like friendship when they hold each other afterwards, when they share drowsy kisses and idle conversation.

And when he wakes up satisfied and content, he is tempted to make too much of things. He is tempted to believe he could belong to this. But Sirius has always been a better friend than a lover, and he knows Remus deserves more. So he pretends, as he dresses and breakfasts with his friend, that this is the last time.

It is a promise he doesn’t make, because it is one he knows he cannot keep. The habit is too old, the need too great. He’ll last a month, maybe more, before it happens again. Before he gets tired of his life, of coasting along and not caring about anything.

Remus’s kitchen is small and clean, but deliberately untidy in places. The room is too hot from the stove, where bacon and eggs are being cooked and tea is brewed. Sirius doesn’t help. He sits at the table, wondering where things went wrong, and why they never get better. He doesn’t kiss Remus in the mornings, doesn’t touch him, though he wishes he could. He wishes they had something different than this, in between friendship and love and never quite enough of either. He wishes Remus would stop him, because he can never stop himself.


End file.
